Copywriters Forum

Hi,

I'm Jacob, I help people with time management and creating tools for themselves.

I'm not a professional copywriter but I wrote a few copies for my own work and learned about copywriting as a humble beginner by reading authors like John Carlton and Dan S. Kennedy.

I'm really excited to join this community to learn more about the best practices of copywriting!

Hi Jacob, and welcome to the community.

I first started writing copy for my own work also (a couple decades ago). Every day we learn a little more, until one day we look back and realize how far we've come.

I'd love to learn more about your time management tools. And in return, let me know if I can help you with your copy.

All the best,
Steve

Sure, I'd love to be able to help!

So for example one of my tools consists of using a template to generate a copy based on an external file that contains specific info about the product.

This way, when I write a copy, I write everything in this external file, and I can then generate different drafts such as an email (in HTML), or a sales page (in plain text).

This is only an example but if you had a tool that would make your workflow smoother, what would it look like?

Hello Jacob -

Welcome to the forum. I'm looking forward to your contributions, and I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

- F

jacob-sapir wrote: ↑July 7th, 2021, 12:58 pm So for example one of my tools consists of using a template to generate a copy based on an external file that contains specific info about the product.

This way, when I write a copy, I write everything in this external file, and I can then generate different drafts such as an email (in HTML), or a sales page (in plain text).

This is only an example but if you had a tool that would make your workflow smoother, what would it look like?

Interesting. Can you explain a bit more?

Also, is it possible to change the templates, or make our own templates for different styles of copy? (conversational vs educational vs straight selling vs advertorial, etc.) That could be useful.

Franklin wrote: ↑July 7th, 2021, 3:59 pm Hello Jacob -

Welcome to the forum. I'm looking forward to your contributions, and I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

- F

Thank you Franklin, I'm looking forward to help!

SARubin wrote: ↑July 7th, 2021, 9:25 pm

jacob-sapir wrote: ↑July 7th, 2021, 12:58 pm So for example one of my tools consists of using a template to generate a copy based on an external file that contains specific info about the product.

This way, when I write a copy, I write everything in this external file, and I can then generate different drafts such as an email (in HTML), or a sales page (in plain text).

This is only an example but if you had a tool that would make your workflow smoother, what would it look like?

Interesting. Can you explain a bit more?

Also, is it possible to change the templates, or make our own templates for different styles of copy? (conversational vs educational vs straight selling vs advertorial, etc.) That could be useful.

So a very simple and unsophisticated example of this is creating a file (for example "benefits.txt") containing:

1. A list of benefits of the product.
2. The name of the product.
3. The link to the sales page.

Then, based on an external template (named "template.txt") generate an email in HTML (named "firstDraft.html") with all the benefits located strategically (defined in "template.txt"), and the name of the product is then a clickable link to the sales page.
In this example, the HTML format also allows for emoticons such as (say on the left of every benefit), or (say on the left of the clickable link to the sales page).

So yes absolutely, the templates are made by us depending on the styles of copy, the difficulty lies in defining the template in a way where we know what to replace in the template to generate the "firstDraft.html" file (if we keep the same name as in the example above).

So we have to write keywords in the template that refer to something such as "xBenefits" to place the benefits or "xProductLink" to insert the clickable link (of course the keywords are customizable, this is just an example).

Is there a version of this that could help with your own workflow?

jacob-sapir wrote: ↑July 8th, 2021, 5:25 pm So yes absolutely, the templates are made by us depending on the styles of copy, the difficulty lies in defining the template in a way where we know what to replace in the template to generate the "firstDraft.html" file (if we keep the same name as in the example above).

Is there a version of this that could help with your own workflow?

This could be useful. I've tried a couple different copy generators in the past and some worked better than others.

But the biggest issue I had with the more popular ones is the template structure.
Some of them have many templates to choose from, usually separated into categories, but if 1000 people are using it then all our copy starts to look the same as everyone else's. (it's hard to project an individual style, and stand out from the crowd, when our copy looks the same as 1000 other competitors)

The ability to create our own template, in our own voice, is interesting.

Is this software something you're currently marketing to the public? Or is it still in the creation / testing stages?

SARubin wrote: ↑July 9th, 2021, 1:11 pm Is this software something you're currently marketing to the public? Or is it still in the creation / testing stages?

Right now it's not marketed to the public, it's just something I use for myself, so it's still in the creation stage.

This could be useful. I've tried a couple different copy generators in the past and some worked better than others.

But the biggest issue I had with the more popular ones is the template structure.
Some of them have many templates to choose from, usually separated into categories, but if 1000 people are using it then all our copy starts to look the same as everyone else's. (it's hard to project an individual style, and stand out from the crowd, when our copy looks the same as 1000 other competitors)

The ability to create our own template, in our own voice, is interesting.

That is interesting, I didn't know about copy generators, this is very similar to what I created for myself. But that's right, using predefined templates that we can't fully customize does seem to be limiting.

What would be the best way to define your own template structure so that it can fully capture your own voice?

jacob-sapir wrote: ↑July 11th, 2021, 7:29 am Right now it's not marketed to the public, it's just something I use for myself, so it's still in the creation stage.

That's cool.
If you ever decide to promote it let me know. I might be able to offer some help.

jacob-sapir wrote: ↑July 11th, 2021, 7:29 am What would be the best way to define your own template structure so that it can fully capture your own voice?

That's a tough one for me to answer right now. I'd need to see your software in action to be able to tell what kind of copy it produces, and how it works. Then I may have a better idea of how to define a template?

SARubin wrote: ↑July 11th, 2021, 10:59 pm That's a tough one for me to answer right now. I'd need to see your software in action to be able to tell what kind of copy it produces, and how it works. Then I may have a better idea of how to define a template?

Here's a short video of the software in action, let me know if that makes sense:
https://youtu.be/7A5ivhKfI1o

As explained in the video, this is just a prototype but I think it's a lot easier to understand the idea this way.

I think it's great you like to make productivity tools, Jacob. Most of us appreciate things that make our lives easier.

I visited your website and see you have a couple other productivity programs. That's awesome. Helping people be more productive is an evergreen niche, and if you stick with it you can definitely carve out a following for yourself.

For the copy generator, I do like the idea of being able to create our own templates.

I'm not sure how much I'd use it though because I like to write individual narratives based on my current audience. But I do see potential for using it to write first drafts and outlines.

Do you have any plans to expand the program to the marketplace? Or is this mostly just for your own use?

I watched the video and I can see potential but if you want to sell it commercially it needs a more user friendly interface.
All of the better selling copy generators are fill in the blanks, click a button, and out pops the copy.
Google "copywriting generator" and you'll see the competition.

SARubin wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 10:02 am I think it's great you like to make productivity tools, Jacob. Most of us appreciate things that make our lives easier.

I visited your website and see you have a couple other productivity programs. That's awesome. Helping people be more productive is an evergreen niche, and if you stick with it you can definitely carve out a following for yourself.

Thank you for the supportive feedback!

For the copy generator, I do like the idea of being able to create our own templates.

I'm not sure how much I'd use it though because I like to write individual narratives based on my current audience. But I do see potential for using it to write first drafts and outlines.

Of course, don't hesitate to let me know if you think of a tool that could help you with writing individual narratives based on an audience. I'd be happy to build that tool if I have the skills.

Do you have any plans to expand the program to the marketplace? Or is this mostly just for your own use?

As it is right now, it's just for my own use, but if I find a way to make it actually useful for copywriters, I might expand some version of it to the marketplace. Is that okay if I create a post with a survey in order to know more about how I could help copywriters?

Franklin wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 10:51 am I watched the video and I can see potential but if you want to sell it commercially it needs a more user friendly interface.
All of the better selling copy generators are fill in the blanks, click a button, and out pops the copy.
Google "copywriting generator" and you'll see the competition.

Thank you for the feedback Franklin!
I agree 100%, the interface for the prototype is really bad, I would make a proper interface if I was gonna pursue this. If the interface was a "fill in the blanks, click a button, and out pops the copy" type, what would the ideal generated copy look like for you?

jacob-sapir wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 12:28 pm Is that okay if I create a post with a survey in order to know more about how I could help copywriters?

Sure, go ahead. This forum is all about helping people with their writing. And part of that is helping you discover how your software might help other copywriters.

But you should probably start a new topic for it, in a different section of the forums (maybe in the "General Copywriting" forum) because it feels like this particular conversation is starting to outgrow the "introduce yourself" stage

SARubin wrote: ↑July 14th, 2021, 10:10 am Sure, go ahead. This forum is all about helping people with their writing. And part of that is helping you discover how your software might help other copywriters.

But you should probably start a new topic for it, in a different section of the forums (maybe in the "General Copywriting" forum) because it feels like this particular conversation is starting to outgrow the "introduce yourself" stage

Agreed, I will create a separate post in the "General Copywriting" section of the forum.

Thank you, Steve!